Page 14 - CROSS CULTURE

A. The Concept of Culture

According to Soelaeman (2000:21), culture is creating, controlling,
and preparing values of humanity. Culture also can be defined as all

ways of life including arts, beliefs, values, attitude, and institutions of

a population that are passed down from generation to generation.

Levine (1992), define culture as “a shared background (for
example, national, ethnic, religious) from a common language and

communication style, customs, beliefs, attitudes, and values”.

Cultural studies have always been a stretched discourse, which

responds to changing political and historical conditions and is always

marked by debate, disagreement, and intervention.

By analogy, culture can be likened to an iceberg where there is

a part that appears on the surface of the sea and there is a part that is

hidden below the surface of the sea. Like an iceberg, the results of

outside influences on this culture cannot be seen or in other words are

not easy to interpret. These hidden parts of culture play the most role
in determining a person's attitude and character in their interactions

with others. Abstract things such as a person's way of communicating,

way of thinking, beliefs, attitudes, character, values, and point of view

are examples of hidden parts of an iceberg. We will not know the

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